1 May 2025 

MEDIA RELEASE

SUMMARY: The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) reiterates its call for 16 August to be officially recognised as South African Workers Day, instead of 1 May. While respecting the historical importance of International Workers Day, AMCU maintains that South Africa’s own working-class struggles must be commemorated on the date of the Marikana Massacre. Th Union highlights the worsening economic crisis faced by workers, the jobs bloodbath across key sectors, the looming threat posed by proposed amendments to South Africa’s labour laws, the failures of mine safety enforcement, and the hollow role of NEDLAC in labour policymaking. 

As has been its practice since 2018, AMCU does not celebrate Workers Day on 1 May. Instead, the union continues to call on its members to take leave on 16 August each year to honour those who were murdered during the Marikana Massacre on that date in 2012. 

While we recognise 1 May as workers day, as it is globally recognised due to the Haymarket Massacre in the United States in 1886, AMCU believes that the South African labour movement must centre its commemoration on its own most defining and tragic moment of working-class resistance. 

In 2024 and early 2025, the South African economy has seen a further decline in job creation, with the latest data from Statistics South Africa placing the official unemployment rate at 32.1%, and youth unemployment remaining alarmingly high at 59.7%. 

To address the self-inflicted unemployment rate caused by the government, we call on the following: 

• We call for 60/40 quotation system on Minerals export for Industrialization and Beneficiation to address the unemployment. 
• We call on changing the curriculum to be skilled base and job creation, 
• We call on embargo for all daily used materials to be locally manufactured. 
• Introduce high tariff for imports on certain items which can be locally manufactured 
• Employ first south African graduate unless is a scarce skill 

This will drastically reduce unemployment 

In the mining sector alone, over 7,000 retrenchments were issued in 2024 across operations in platinum, gold, coal, and chrome. The construction sector lost a further 21,000 jobs during the same period, with mass job cuts also recorded in steel, transport, and manufacturing. 

The crisis is deepened by continued failures in the enforcement of mine health and safety regulations. According to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), 35 mineworkers died in 2024 – a slight increase from the 32 fatalities in 2023 – while over 1,900 injuries were recorded. 

Most fatalities occurred in fall-of-ground incidents, equipment failures, and underground transport accidents. Despite repeated public promises, government has failed to amend the Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA) to ensure stronger enforcement powers, criminal liability for negligent employers, and worker-led safety structures. AMCU has consistently called for such reforms since 2016, including during oral submissions in Parliament. 

At the same time, workers are under legislative siege. The government, together with its alliance partner COSATU, has endorsed a new wave of proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and National Minimum Wage Act. These amendments include a proposal to limit reinstatement remedies for high-earning employees, redefine unfair labour practices, and extend probationary periods where workers can be dismissed without protection. 

While these changes were formally negotiated through NEDLAC, it is clear that NEDLAC has become nothing more than a rubberstamp for policy already agreed between federations, business and government, with independent unions like AMCU systematically excluded from the process. 

As AMCU we emphasise that the state is once again being captured by big capital, and that workers are being sold out through superficial gestures, parliamentary reports, and amendments crafted to serve the interests of capital. While workers are told they are free, the law is being changed to make it harder to strike and easier to be dismissed. Probation is extended without protection, and the economy is structured so that retrenchment is cheaper than renewal. Rights that workers have fought for are steadily eroded with every new amendment. 

We are warning against being deceived by the appearance of progress. We further note that, while 1 May is celebrated with colourful speeches and marches, the same government that publicly praises workers is simultaneously undermining them through policy changes made out of the public eye. For this reason, AMCU insists that 16 August must be recognised as the true Workers Day, as it marks the day in 2012 when Lonmin (now Sibanye Stillwater) Mineworkers paid with their lives for economic justice. 

This is not just a betrayal of workers, but a betrayal of the blood that was spilled at Marikana. That blood, we say, is not only on the Koppie, but is present in every retrenchment letter, every job lost, every injury and fatality caused by negligent employers, and in every family that goes hungry while mines extract wealth and government speaks of growth. 

What is there to celebrate for the workers of South Africa when the Lilly Mine Workers are still languishing in the belly of the earth. AMCU has called on the State President’s, including the sitting Honourable President Cyril Ramaphosa and also the Minister of DMR Gwede Mantashe, who are both former Trade Unionist to declare Lily mine as a state disaster in order to retrieve the container. 

It is an insult to the families and the 3 workers that the same President and COSATU are attending a rally mascaraing as workers right in Middelburg, knowingly that there are workers still trapped in Lily Mine. 

Lilly Mine has become a springboard for the political parties that are using the plight of these families for their own publicity without any meaningful contribution to remedy the situation. 

We call on the workers of South Africa to recognise that no one will save them except themselves. We urge unity not only in the mines, but also in communities, classrooms, and unemployment lines. We call for organisation and for workers to make their voices heard, not just in the streets but also in Parliament. 

*ENDS*

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For more information or media interviews, contact AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa.